, 1887-03-01
JESSIE BENTON FREMONT.
Her Visit to the Old Lady Who Once
Saved Her Life.

Her Visit to the Old Lady Who Once
Saved Her Life.
When Jessie Benton was a 3-year-old
child she was seized with a violent attack
of Group while the Benton family was OF
the way from Washington to st. Louis on
the National road. SO violent was it that
the child's father turned off the highway
into the nearest house, which happened
to be Mrs. Crugar's. The woman saved
the child's life and thus established Il
claim to the attentions of the Benton
household whenever she was in Washing
ton. She was a woman who had a very
clear mind and was remarkably well
read, but was s%'singularly without any
synlpathies." When Mrs. Fremont was
ut Wheeling with her husband in the
early days of the war she recalled the
woman who had performed such signal
service for her in her childhood, and to
her surprise learned upon inquiry that
Mrs. Crugar was still living. as clear
minded as ever, though quite 100 years
old. In a well built house of dressed
stone, very large and solid, with the
usual detached kitchen and long row of
negro quarters-all the roads and paths
leading to it lost in the unchecked growth
of many years-the old lady lived, en-
tirely alone, even the servants being
locked out at sunset.
Mrs. Fremont determined to visit her
and rode out to her house, accompanied
by the general and attended by a guard.
In a large library, lined with books, she
found the old lady who had saved her life
as a baby, who still knew her perfectly
and all about her and why armed men
attended her on the visit. She had in her
hand "a volume of the Spectator
which, she said. was writing she liked
her old books were the only kind she
cared for. Her dress, like her books,
was old, but of the best, for she was care
fully arrayed in rich black satin, with a
cap of beautiful old yellowed lace, and
the inevitable false hair, dark, was
framed in with rich lace quillings. Her
age told in the skin of her face and
hands, which was like crimped parch-
ment, but the lips were firm, and the
eyes deep set, in wrinkled lids, were still
dark and keen. Nor did she forget her
duties as hostess, and said it might please
''the young people" to go up ~stairs-there
was a ball room there. and they might
dance if they liked.
This ballroom turned out to be a mu-
scum of the fashions from 1920 to 1910.
for Mrs. Crugar, like Queen Elizabeth,
had kept all her fine clothes. The walls
were hung with dresses Of silk and satin
and velvet, mantles OF queer, rich dam
ask, pelisses trimmed with fur, and
braided riding habits. In the closets were
bonnets of fine Leghorn and OF tremen-
dous size, cashmere turbans embroidered
i'll gold, long wells of fine old English lace
and treasures of good lace in shawls and
capes, English Honiton, Mechlin or Brus-
sels. When one of the young officers put
his hand on a pincushion it fell to pieces.
The old lady had seen none of these
things for more than a quarter Of a cent
ury, but she talked of the war and its in
evitable result, but without feeling and
apparently without sympathies. Well
might any woman of fashion ask herself
if such a life was worth living, for what
Mrs. Crugar was fashion had made her.
Review of Mrs. Fremont's Book.